NGEC commended for spearheading Gender responsive budgeting

The Budget and Appropriations Committee of the National Assembly has commended the National Gender and Equality Commission for its efforts in ensuring National as well as county budgets are gender responsive.

A report on the estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2016/2017 and the medium term by the Committee cites resources channeled to various programs for the youth (Youth Enterprise Fund), for persons with disability, orphans and older persons, and women (Uwezo Fund and Women Enterprise Fund) and Free maternity health care as evidence of a budget being oriented towards addressing equality and equity principles as provided in the constitution. 

The Commission has developed guidelines for gender responsive budgeting aimed at assisting  technical officers and the policy arm of government in understanding  the concept of mainstreaming in planning as well as enabling them and stakeholders to track the outcomes of their efforts.

The Committee’s report says that Kenya is primed to easily join Morocco and Rwanda in Africa in integrating the concept of Gender Responsive Budgeting in its programmes, budgets and financing. The report recommends that future budgets include specific gender sensitive programmes, sub-programmes, and associated performance information.